Russian woman gives birth to 7.75-kilo baby girls

Tatiana Khalina, 42, delivered the girl - her 12th child - by Caesarean section at a maternity clinic in Aleisk, a small town in the Altai region in southern Siberia, Svetlana Gildeyeva, a nurse at the clinic, said Thursday.

Some Russian media reports said it was the heaviest baby on record but that could not be confirmed.

Gildeyeva said the birth, on Sept. 17, went smoothly and both the mother and the child were fine. She said the baby, Nadezhda, was transferred from the small Aleisk clinic to a maternity hospital in the bigger city of Barnaul that had better facilities.

The girl was feeling well and developing normally, said Irina Kurdeka, a doctor at the Barnaul hospital.

The daily Moskovsky Komsomolets quoted the local social services chief, Marina Alistratova, as saying that neither Khalina nor her husband were tall. She said that Khalina's husband was on contract with a local military unit and the family had modest means.

"We have presented them with a good washing machine, a food package and a card," Alistratova told the newspaper. "We will keep supporting them in the future."

An average weight for newborn babies is around 3.2 kilograms (7 pounds), according to international statistics.

The Guinness Book of Records says the heaviest baby ever was born in the United States in 1879. It weighed 10.4 kilograms (23.12 pounds) and died 11 hours after birth. The book also listed 10.2-kilogram (22.8-pound) babies born in Italy in 1955 and in South Africa in 1982.